Senator Lugar: Please Do Not Announce Bolton Hearings Today

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NOTE TO WASHINGTON NOTE READERS: Please immediately call the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (Majority Staff) office at 202-224-4651 and state that while you are not opposed to the Bolton Hearings themselves, you are asking Senator Lugar NOT TO ANNOUNCE THE DATE OF THE HEARINGS TODAY.

John Bolton as Political Operator, Ideologue and Neo-Primitive

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Sidney Blumenthal’s column today exposes the perversity of appointing John Bolton to serve as our Ambassador to the United Nations. Here are the most poignant lines in the piece, but I recommend reading it in full: — John Bolton has been named by President Bush as the US ambassador to the UN.

<em>Deja Vu</em>: Bad Intel Data on Iranian Arms

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According to a New York Times article out today by Douglas Jehl and Eric Schmitt, a high-level panel is going to report to President Bush that our intelligence on Iran’s arms is inadequate. This hasn’t stopped the grind towards an Iran confrontation though.

Jack Oliver & Steve Elmendorf: Odd Bedfellows Tie Up

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Tom DeLay will be upset. Another liberal pol got a job in Washington — and is even co-opting a well-placed conservative. My friend Steve Elmendorf who ran Dick Gephardt’s world for more than a decade has tied up in a lobbying enterprise with Jack Oliver, “former money man for President George W.

Japan’s Imperial Problem: Are the Emperor and His Son Really Feuding Over Masako? Japan’s Crown Princess Remembered on <a href="http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/women/womday97.htm">International Women’s Day</a>

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Unless you are a Japan watcher, this post probably won’t interest you — unless you are into royals. And most Japan watchers for that matter aren’t interested in the imperial family and the goings-on within Japan’s secretive aristocracy. But I am going to write about this Tokyo soap opera anyway.